The University of North Carolina System spends at least $90 million annually on salaries for diversity, equity, and inclusion staff members, according to a new report from Open the Books.
The report released Tuesday by federal spending watchdog Open the Books detailed the UNC System's spending on DEI salaries, showing that the university system is paying 686 staff members across 16 campuses to push the ideology. This week, the UNC Board of Governors is expected to meet in Raleigh to vote on a measure that would eliminate DEI requirements across all campuses in the university system.
“When world events put a stress test on the far-Left DEI worldview, it quickly begins coming apart at the seams," Open the Books founder and CEO Adam Andrzejewski said in a statement. "Wedging everything into an oppressor-oppressed model, and injecting race essentialism into everyday affairs has proven to foment anger and division. Pitting different identity groups against one another is precisely the opposite of inclusion."
Last week, the UNC at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees voted to divert $2.3 million in DEI funding toward public safety and policing initiatives. The Open the Books report noted that the Chapel Hill campus alone dishes out nearly $30 million in DEI salaries. North Carolina State University spends roughly $16.4 million, according to the watchdog.
The amount of money Chapel Hill alone spends on DEI could pay the in-state tuition for roughly 1,100 students, based on the school's $27,036 tuition costs. The UNC System is public and, therefore, taxpayer-funded at about $1 billion per year.
According to the report , 288 of the 686 staff members are dedicated DEI staff members, while 398 were DEI-related, such as serving on committees, councils, or other bodies that advance DEI. It also found 80 students who worked mostly in volunteer capacities to help engrain DEI ideology.
"For the first time, these exhaustive reviews can offer a look at just how deeply ingrained the DEI philosophy has become," Andrzejewski told the Washington Examiner. "With each passing day this worldview, which defines everyone by identity traits, is proving how divisive it really is in practice. A look at the full scale of DEI spending reveals what a task it will be to reverse the damage we’re seeing play out on campuses. Thankfully, UNC appears to be taking steady steps back toward providing a first-class educational experience that prepares students to contribute to the American economy. Taxpayers deserve nothing less from a publicly funded institution.”
Individual salaries for DEI officials in the UNC System are usually hefty, with Chapel Hill's chief diversity officer, Leah Cox, cashing in at $317,538 per year, while Sheri Schwab, the North Carolina State University vice provost for institutional equity and diversity, makes $232,964, according to Open the Books.
Even the cost analysis of salaries does not tell the full story of how DEI becomes embedded into a university, as it is an ideology based on affecting every function of an operation.
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“There is hope that North Carolina will follow the Florida model and begin to reverse the damage, but there is a lot of work ahead of them," Andrzejewski said. "The breadth and scale of the DEI effort at UNC illustrates how ingrained the radical doctrine has become in academia."
UNC did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
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